Sermon by Rev. F. Vernon Wright V
January 26, 2025
Good morning! We are gathered together to claim our space! As you may have heard, some people are hoping to make us think we don’t belong here- that were not a part of the history of this nation. Some people think that the people we love don’t belong here, that the people trying to figure out the gender identity that makes the most sense to them, or who have romantic feelings for people of the same gender- or who might be attracted to both genders and whom might themselves be both genders, don’t fit. But they do. We really do belong. And all those we love belong.
I mean, if these people saying we don’t belong, really thought about it, we’re pretty sure that they’d change their mind. But that’s hard for some right now. We, like most humans enjoy diversity, value science, love history, grow from cultural study, are enriched by literature, theology, world religion. I think really nearly all Americans believe in reason to a fairly large extent and they can tell when people are being singled out to be bullied because of their skin color or who they love and they know its not fair. But right now, all of the great gifts of humanity are glommed together into a vilified hated term: woke. Right now if you are four star brass, like Admiral Linda Lee, an ordinary federal employee, a principle of any school gaining federal moneys and you wish protect trans kids from getting bullied, you can lose your job if they think your woke. Never mind the irony that you would have never been able to become a principle, federal employee or top brass, if you hadn’t devoted your life to studies of woke topics to begin with!
Now today, if you’re one of those type of people who think the separation of church and state should be destroyed, if you think there are just two genders, if you think women shouldn’t have the right to choose, if you don’t think people of color contribute to society, it used to be you kind of had to… keep that hidden. Maybe that was something you could speak freely about only in your fundamentalist church. Now after decades of hard work organized by networks of churches like yours, you finally have the power to glom all the things you fear, and your church teaches you to despise, as woke. Now all of the powers have your ear, now you can bully and weaponize the courts and federal agencies to your hearts content. You can bully again without fear.
But you can’t do that here. No this is our space. We have claimed it after thousands of years of being despised and singled out and executed in public. Here, the ethical and mystical teachings of the worlds greatest religions are liberated from the trade mark of their dogmas. Here, love and service reign. Here, it doesn’t matter what you believe, it just matters that you love, and you want to help other people. This is our community, where we support one another and care for one another. We are brothers and sisters. And we will share that bond with anyone who wishes to sojourn with us. Here, protected by this constitution that still stands (no matter what happens at the federal or even state level), we UU’s will claim the very definition of woke- that anybody who is woke, that anybody who loves woke and woke people has a safe place here. Because actually, woke just means what we have thought since the beginning of the Unitarian and Universalist fellowships and churches, that reason should always have a place in faith.
Let them ape in dumb confusion as they drive by our signs, and they are reminded that, yes we do church too. Let them consider that just as they have been using their churches to organize policies and issues they want, we can do the same.
The reading I chose today comes from the greatest UU theologian James Luther Adams (or JLA). He was living in Germany as a student studying under the best liberal thinkers in the world when Hitler rose to power. He saw that liberalism had failed. Why had it failed? Because it wasn’t local enough, it wasn’t situated anywhere in small enough groups of people to really mean something deep and stirring. It had focused all its attention at the top forgetting that all lofty things must be rooted in the soil and manure of the lives of ordinary people to matter. By the way are we not the most ordinary of people? So when he got back to the US he focused on the Unitarian churches. He is responsible for more people going to Unitarian churches than any other person; for he ushered in the Unitarian renaissance. And he organized everywhere, he served to create campaigns for progressive politicians. As he said, “The function of the church is to bring people into communion with a group wherein the divine power of transforming and the ethical standards rooted in it are operative. …only by this do we become… ‘young for liberty.” It was only then, that he thought the redemptive power of God (or for the humanists among us, love ethics) would break in and transform society for the better- through that local community and in the other local communities like it.
Let’s follow JLA’s good advice and get busy! There’s a lot of people that are scared right now. This week I talked to a friend of mine who’s a meditator and author, who doesn’t belong to a community like ours. She can’t sleep, she’s anxious- I told her to join in with a good UU church. She said, well I’m not religious. I said don’t worry most of us aren’t. Everybody deserves a community where they can let their hair down (in my case down and out!) and feel safe.
You know whats happening right now to all good somewhat stable UU churches, and even the liberal christian churches? Lots of people are showing up! Just as conservative churches started to grow when liberal stuff started to happen on the national stage in the early seventies, liberal ones will start to grow now. When we have enough sense of community that we can sleep at night, when we know at least a hundred people have our back- guess what, we know that no matter what happens, on a local level we have options.
For instance, I’m sure you heard the new administration has just given ICE the authority to raid schools and churches. I was concerned and reached out. Guess who else is concerned? Very, very many communities right now. Within an hour, we found several ways to help keep our food pantry volunteers and clients informed and safe. We found several legal ways to stymie ICE officers. But I felt something deeper stirring still; I found out something as I networked, instead of feeling powerless, I felt empowered. Instead of lonely- I felt I was surrounded by friends.
I know I’m not alone. I think everyone who claims this space as their own- so many smart lay leaders, and food pantry volunteers, and meditators and thrift shop volunteers, and musicians, and kids, know that they have a safe space. This is our space. We will claim it and we will harness it for the good of the world. And we are a rock. And this wave a hatred we are seeing shall break against us, as Shakespear might say, with a sound and fury signifying nothing. From this place we will send out life-boats. Our light will shine strong and whole.
